“My name, kotyonok.”

“Ronan.”

A groan rumbled in my chest, and I started a steady pace, pushing into her with long, slow thrusts. She braced her hands on the bed behind her and rose up to kiss my chest with a graze of teeth, running her mouth everywhere she could reach. I couldn’t bring myself to make her stop.

“Who’s fucking you now?”

Kissing the corner of my lips, she breathed, “Ronan.” Then she slid her tongue into my mouth, and I had no willpower to resist sucking it.

I fisted her hair and tugged her head back so I could see her eyes. “And who fucks you from now on?” Until Saturday. Everything in me hated the idea so much, I thrust into her hard, forcing her next word out with a moan.

“Ronan.”

I dropped to my elbows, relishing the feel of her tits against my bare chest. She wrapped her long legs around my hips, and when I rolled my pelvis to brush her clit, a sigh of pleasure escaped her.

I skimmed my lips down her neck. “You like that, kotyonok?”

She ran her nails down the length of my back in response, rolling her hips against mine with every thrust. Her little moans were so damn sexy, I kissed her to taste them. She sipped on my bottom lip and then ran her tongue across my scar. I exhaled roughly. Whenever she did that, it made me feel as if I’d been lacking something until she came around and licked me.

Her lips were so soft, and I parted them with my own, slipping my tongue inside. The kiss went straight to my chest.

“I want to . . .” She panted the words between the slide of my lips. “See you . . .” I sucked her bottom lip and released the flesh with a graze of teeth. “Come.”

“You first, kotyonok.”

I grabbed her hands, held them above her head, and grinded against her clit until she shattered beneath me. Then I pressed my face into her neck and came inside her, a white-hot fire shooting through me so hard, my vision went black. My muscles shook, so I rolled off her before I crushed her with my body weight.

I caught my breath for a moment and almost laughed at the irony. A virgin made me come harder than I ever had before. When I felt the mattress dip, I automatically grabbed her wrist without looking.

“I’m tired,” Mila said and pulled against my grip.

Sliding my gaze to her, I saw she was refusing to look at me, her eyes on the door as if she couldn’t wait to leave. I didn’t know why, but I found it fucking irritating. I yanked her ass back to the bed beside me. She exhaled in frustration, and then I noticed the tear running down her cheek. Fuck. My throat felt tight. I knew Mila couldn’t do a casual fuck. I knew, and I took it anyway.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Tell me to stop crying and then let me go.”

Instead, I brushed the tear away with my thumb. The wetness burned my skin and expanded a pressure in my chest that demanded I kiss her. So I did. She sighed into my mouth, her lips tentative against mine.

I pulled back to say, “I’ll get Yulia to find some candles.”

A small smile touched her lips. She thought I was joking. When I reached for my phone on the nightstand, she panicked and grabbed my arm.

“Really, I’m fine,” she said just as another tear escaped.

I wiped the tear away. “Malen’kaya lgunishka . . .” Then I rolled her underneath me and braced my hands on either side of her head. Before she could complain, her eyes paused on my shoulders; on the nautical star tattoo on each one. I could do nothing but look at her as she touched the pendant on her necklace.

The moonlight loved her.

But not as much as my shadows.

“Ti slishkom ideal’naya chto bi byt’ nastoyashchey.” The words escaped me without thought, and when she looked at me with wet lashes, so did the translation I pressed to her ear.

heliophilia

(n.) the desire to stay in the sun

My eyes opened to a dark room, and confusion ran rampant until I saw the black sheet covering me and remembered I was in Ronan’s room. In his bed. With his body heat at my back. The clock on the nightstand said two-thirty a.m., which meant I was only asleep for thirty minutes before waking with a full bladder.

The previous hours turned in my head. I’d anticipated sex and then for Ronan to slap my ass on my way out the door. I didn’t expect for him to say I was perfect and then kiss me until I fell asleep. I hadn’t known he had that kind of softness in him. It was more than I thought I’d ever get. So why did I feel so . . . empty?

God, I really was an emotional fuck.

Quietly, I pulled the sheets back and slid off the bed. When my feet touched the floor, I turned to glance at him. My heart grew heavy at the sight.

He slept on his back, an arm above his head. He looked so human, so vulnerable, so handsome, it stole my breath to even look at him.

Madame Richie’s laugh resounded in my mind and raised the hair on my arms. No wonder she’d burst out laughing. The man meant for me was a mobster who kidnapped me and would soon murder my papa. My fortune must have been the most interesting one she ever foresaw.

I found my clothes on the floor and dragged them into the bathroom. I would have gone straight to my room, but come was leaking down my thighs. A condom had been my last thought when Ronan’s hands were all over me, though now the lack of one filled me with uncertainty. I knew he wasn’t celibate. I also knew he used condoms; they were stashed in his nightstand drawer. My stomach turned at the idea of him with other women in the same bed he just slept with me in—Nadia especially. Was he as soft with her as he was with me? The thought made me sick, so I pushed it away.

After I cleaned myself up, peed, and dressed, I exited the bathroom. Ronan was still sleeping, looking so peaceful I didn’t want to wake him—not that I had a reason to. We’d only had sex; it meant nothing to him. He couldn’t have made it clearer. I was the stupid one for thinking I could handle it and not feel anything for him afterward.

As I moved to the door, my gaze caught on something that glinted silver in the moonlight. Everything inside of me went quiet. Even my heart.

The pistol lay on the floor a few feet away.

My eyes traveled back to Ronan. As a heavy feeling disrupted the silence within me, I suddenly knew I would never turn him in for what he did to me. He may not be a good man, but the world wasn’t black-and-white. He was all the gray in between.

And I was falling for him hard—so hard, I worried when he was finished, there wouldn’t be anything left of me.

I glanced back at the gun, my gaze as torn in direction as the sudden conflict ripping me in half. A part of me wanted to ignore the chance of freedom; the other wondered if this was my only chance to save my papa . . . and, selfishly, myself. I knew I couldn’t take another’s life in the process. I knew without a doubt I could never take Ronan’s.

But most games were won by bluffs.

The moonlight felt like frost on my skin as my feet moved of their own volition. My hands shook when I picked up the murderous piece of metal. It was heavy—so heavy, I immediately wanted to drop it, but when my mind played a scene of me standing in front of my papa’s coffin alone, my grip tightened.

“Kotyonok.”

The single word slid through me, restarting my body with a jolt of axles and wheels that echoed in my ears. My eyes shot to Ronan’s. He sat on the edge of the bed in his briefs, his arms resting on his thighs. A narrowed gaze dropped to the gun in my hands before sliding back up to mine.